Best way to drop fat

There's no need to lump creatine in there with other, newer supplements. There have been numerous studies about creatine, and if I'm not mistaken, none of them have found it to be harmful in any way. Ask your doctor about it.

The nutrients found in the supplements I recommended can all be derived from proper nutrition, but few people have such a clean, virtually perfect diet. I'd even say that it is impossible to get the optimal amounts of all of them.
To saturate your muscles with creatine, you'd have to eat two or more pounds of beef every single day. To eat the amount of DHA and EPA you get from supplementing your diet with fish oil caps, you'd have to eat a lot of fish every day...which would present the problem of excessive heavy metal consumption.

Other supplements that seem to work well without posing health risks are glucosamine (for your joints) and BCAAs. However, the latter are expensive and the effect only seems to be worth it for professional athletes.
 
I just quoted the another post. A lot of people like creatine and I mostly was referencing the hormone-precursor/pro-hormone garbage.

Personally I have never gotten anything out of creatine. Had a friend who worked for American Bodybuilding who swore by it. Sent me enough for 12 weeks. Didn't notice anything.
He sent me a laundry list of things to cut out (coffee, etc) take with high glycemic index carbs, etc. Still didn't get anything.
It doesn't work for me, but I have a lot of friends who swear by it.

There actually is a study that shows creatine can mess with your kidneys when you take a completely stupid amount. Has to do with the shape of the molecules when they don't dissolve.
 
Oh, I wrote my post in reference to Peter's.

lifterg said:
There actually is a study that shows creatine can mess with your kidneys when you take a completely stupid amount.
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Yes, that is true. I just automatically assume that everyone knows that you should take everything in your diet and supplement regimen in moderation. :D
Fish oil can also be harmful if you take too much of it, but the same holds true for vitamins.
The fatty acids in fish oil compete with vitamin E, so if you don't get enough vitamin E but lots of fish oil...well, that's bad. Supplements can't offset the impact a poor diet has on your health.

Some people are quite simply non-responders to creatine. The reason for that is apparently unknown. Maybe you're one of them, or you are just one of the rare guys whose muscles are already saturated with creatine from their diet - or almost saturated so that creatine supplementation doesn't have a noticeable effect.

I wouldn't cut out coffee, but cycle it. This is really important as your body quickly becomes used to the effects of caffeine. Caffeine's not nearly as bad as it's made out to be. Its diuretic effect is negligible if you drink enough water. I think caffeine got its bad rep from people who drink more caffeine than water every day...as I said, "supplements" (if you want to consider a cup of coffee a dietary supplement) won't help if the diet of the person using them isn't up to par. Just like you need to drink plenty of water if you take creatine.

Caffeine is a potent stimulant that lets you perform better if you use it right. Just don't overdo it. I've noticed a substantial increase in performance due to caffeine consumption before running. Here's an interesting article about caffeine and working out.

What you could try is drink some coffee an hour or two before your workouts for two weeks, and then stop drinking it for two weeks.
 
What I said about NO2 was something that I'd heard, and figured that it was worth mentioning just in case. After a couple minutes research, it looks like it's just a myth... infact, it looks like libido may be increased.

Creatine- it's great stuff. When mixed with a healthy diet, whey 100% protein, a working out, it showed results. I didn't get much in the way in the extra muscle building, but I toned down rather quickly after I started taking it, allong with keeping up muscle growth.

As far as caffeine goes- I've heard that it will counteract creatine, which is why most of us lay off of it during sports (allong with the fact that you don't need the sugars and other junk generally assosciated with it).

One thing to remember is that too much of ANYTHING is harmful. This applies to food, water, creatine, protein, vitamins, minerals, etc.
 
Peter_E_Ryt said:
As far as caffeine goes- I've heard that it will counteract creatine, which is why most of us lay off of it during sports (allong with the fact that you don't need the sugars and other junk generally assosciated with it).
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Yeah, that information is also in the link I provided. But AFAIK that does not pertain to creatine's ATP-building capabilities, which is the primary goal of creatine supplementation. So personally, I don't worry about it.
 
Sorry I don't remember the dosage. And they told me to drop caffeine because it counter acts the creatine.

Regrading the creatine, I was told to expect about an 8# weight gain from water retention. This would change my leverages a little and result in a strength gain.

They honestly believed that, they were sending it to me free.

But, unfortunately, I didn't get anything.

A few years later I tried some of the EAS stuff as well. Same.

Not sure why, but I figure it wasn't worth spending any more time experimenting.

The BCAAs do work though in specific instances. Primarily in extreme weight loss and major catabolic states (injury, burns, etc). My thesis was Changes in Branched Chain Amino Acid Metabolism in States of Metabolic Stress.
 
Creatine does indeed cause you to retain water. That's not why it helps you gain strength though. You will lose that extra water weight after you cycle off the creatine.

What it does is replenish the ATP (adenosinetriphosphate) your muscles need to do work. You could consider ATP the fuel you have to supply your muscles with. During a workout session, ATP is broken down into energy and ADP (adenosinediphosphate).
Creatine then turns ADP back into ATP, so your muscles essentially have more fuel to work with, hence permitting an extra rep or two or a little more weight per rep. As I said earlier, this effect of creatine is, to my knowledge, not affected by caffeine; and ATP/ADP regulation is really the main benefit of creatine.

If you keep pushing yourself during the time you're on creatine, your body will become accustomed to lifting just a little bit more due to the muscles' constant saturation with creatine. So when you cycle off, you will still have the extra strength gained during this time.

(The explanation above may not satisfy a biologist, but I'm confident that I got the basic principle right.)

While the effects of creatine aren't huge, the main argument for it is that it's one of the most time-tested and scientifically studied supplements out there and really inexpensive.

If you decide to try it again, take 3 g per day. The "loading phases" that creatine manufacturers advocate are not necessary, they don't offer any additional long-term benefits.

lifterg said:
My thesis was Changes in Branched Chain Amino Acid Metabolism in States of Metabolic Stress.
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Hey, that's interesting. You don't happen to have that on your computer..?

Pretty much all I know about BCAAs is that they're advisable for athletes who do incredible amounts of cardio and can't afford to lose muscle mass in the process (like boxers or mixed martial artists) to take, but the amounts they need to make it worthwhile are quite costly.
 
Unfortuneately, I am old enough that it was done on a Comodore 64. But the basics are pretty simple.

In big catabolic states (starvation, burns, sepsis, etc) one of the major causes of catabolism is a kind of general acidosis. One of the primary regulators of muscle wasting is the blood level of BCAAs.
BCAAs have to be transaminated in the liver, before they can go through gluconeogenesis.
By raising blood levels through diet or infusion, it stops BCAA from being taken from muscle tissue.
This spares the muscle from being broken down for the BCAAs.

About the only athletes that will get to this state of diet and exercise induced acidosis are bodybuilders when cutting, wrestlers or other people who cut for a weight class.

You are right about the expense. It looks like 8-15g/day are about right. It would add up fast

You can't get that acidotic from training alone.

One of the big arguments for Powerliters was the weight gain and changing leverages. I was getting t free, so I wasn't worried about the expense of the loading phase.
I doubt very seriously if I will ever try creatine again.

I basically don't believe in supplements. Anything that works will be regulated out of existence by the FDA or made a controlled substance.
 
my favorite tool as of late(last 4 yrs) has been kettlebells.I also train with sandbags,sledgehammers,Logs and bodyweight drills..and simply lots of greens and lean protiens...and an occasional cheat day to keep my sanity.
 
I'm thinking Rosie and the Sears Tower are involved.
 
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